Category Archives: parties

cake two

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Yesterday was Matilda’s last pre-teen birthday party, which is quite a strange thought.

It was lovely to meet some of her new school friends, and a huge relief not to have to deal with party bags or party games – just a trip to the cinema and supper back here. But although most aspects of the celebration have changed, the cake remains the same -

Nigella’s Buttermilk birthday cake from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. It’s very versatile and I used it for last week’s cream and raspberry cake as well. 

Over the years I have adapted my own butter icing, which I judge by eye and taste, simply slinging the stuff in the mixer and adding a few drops of milk if it gets too thick; Nigella’s icing recipe contains so much sugar I find it completely inedible. I usually only make one cake which I slice in half and spread with Nutella mixed with extra thick double cream, again a something I’ve adapted over many years – it’s very simple and extremely moreish. Just splodge about three heaped tablespoons of Nutella in a small bowl and then add thick cream, stirring vigorously between each spoonful – it will seem to split and go very sticky at first, but as you add more cream it will gradually emulsify, becoming smooth and glossy, but with a mousse-like texture. For a more sophisticated, grown-up version, you can melt some good quality dark chocolate and add that to the mix.

birthdays

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As you can see, this is a well-used cookery book. Although there are several recipes that simply don’t work (I don’t know anyone who has made Nigella’s Brownies successfully with only 25mins in the oven), it is the source of many of our favourite cakes – the dense chocolate loaf, the delicious gingerbread with lemon icing are two that I make again and again, both as tea time treats and also as puddings (the chocolate loaf is wonderful with raspberries and the gingerbread, without the icing, very good with homemade custard).

But the cake I make most frequently is the buttermilk birthday cake: a delicious vanilla sponge that can be tarted up in any number of ways. Matilda’s birthday is in June, so for her I usually pile it high with strawberries. Bea’s birthday is in September, and over the years she’s had several themed parties and the cake has been adapted to look like a snake, a dust and cobweb-covered witches’ cake and a castle. And Martha is seven this Sunday which is why the recipe is out once more.

I have been rather lax in my maternal duties, and completely failed to arrange a party, so I’m wondering what I might do to the cake to make up for this sorry state of affairs. Though I must explain, it is not as awful as it seems. When I realised that various other immovable events had conspired against us, I offered her a choice: we could do something very small this Sunday, or she could wait and I’d arrange a proper party during the Easter holidays. She plumped for the proper party of course. Although I love arranging parties for the girls (I even wrote a book about it), for a reason I cannot fathom, I always leave everything to the last minute. The knowledge that Martha’s party still needs to be sorted out has induced an odd sort of paralysis. I think this must relate in some way to my career in journalism – no matter how long the lead time on a feature, no matter how much research, I could never write anything very much until the deadline was nearly upon me.

And all this talk of birthdays brings me neatly to another birthday: Charlotte’s plot is a year old today (I marked the day with some banana bread, but not a Nigella recipe). And it feels like quite a milestone. I remember being concerned that I didn’t have a particular skill or any specialist knowledge to share, unlike many of the blogs I read regularly, but I had just finished a creative writing course, and I hoped that by writing on a regular basis, daily if possible, I’d keep on track with the novel I was trying to write. Well, that novel is still a random bunch on files on my computer, several notepads of illegible scrawl and no nearer completion.

Life got in the way. At the end of last April Matilda was terribly ill with a weird condition called Henoch-Schoenlein’s Purpura (HSP), and was twice admitted to the children’s hospital; building work started on our basement; the garden was off limits for weeks; and the summer was a crazy round of friends and family coming to stay. Then suddenly it was September, and everyone was back at school, including me, because in the midst of all the chaos I decided I wanted to do RHS level 2 in Horticulture. Fool!

But I’m glad I started this blog. During a lot of that time the parallel universe of the blogosphere (hate that term!) provided a wonderful escape from the drama and drudge of everyday life, just as it still does. That’s not to say that my blog is not a true reflection of my life, but more that it reflects the parts I feel like sharing. Frankly who needs to see the horror of my kitchen table at breakfast time? I notice that I didn’t write a single post about Matilda’s illness and yet it dominated our lives for over nine weeks. Instead I used the blog, and the self-imposed deadlines, to record my increasing fascination with with plants, photography and graffiti. With a little cake, knitting and other stuff thrown in for good measure.

This year of blogging has also enabled me to ‘meet’ so many really lovely people, and I’ve enjoyed reading all the responses to my posts. I’ve tried to reply to everyone, though I am a little haphazard about these things, so I am sorry if I’ve missed anyone out. I will do better this year!

PS If anyone reading this has a child with HSP and wants to know how we dealt with it, do please get in touch. Bristol Children’s Hospital was brilliant, and knew exactly how to deal with the various complications Matilda faced.

happy new year

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As my blog entries for 2010 ended with a cake, it seems only fitting to kick off 2011 with something cakey too. This was our first breakfast of 2011 – a delicious, soft and fragrant panettone from Carluccio’s. I love panettone, and mean to have a go at making one, but as mine won’t come in a shiny red box with silver lettering I wonder whether it’s worth it.

I’ve never really had the nerve not to do anything at all on New Year’s Eve. I don’t know why, because I hate New Years Eve – too many memories of being stuck in the wrong bit London (either on a smelly night bus, or waiting for one), in a desperate bid to make it to what would usually turn out to be a rubbish party, in time to sing a traditional song that no one knows the words to. But this year we decided to duck out of New Year’s Eve, and instead of organising a party, or heading out to one, we had a delicious meal with the children and let them stay up to watch the Bristol skyline light up at midnight. This didn’t go entirely to plan as we had forgotten Bea’s aversion to fireworks, but the other two sat with their noses pressed against the window oohing and aaahing.

A matinee performance of Swallows & Amazons, at the Bristol Old Vic, more than made up for the lack of partying that night. The children were completely entranced by the show which involved lots of incredibly inventive props, unexpected tricks and the most fabulous music by Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy). We all came away wanting to be Amazons, and the girls are still squabbling over which one of them is Nancy Blackett. I booked our tickets online and, by some fluke, secured front-row seats. These are not the seats I would have chosen, and I probably wouldn’t choose them again for anything else, but for this particular production they ensured that we were totally involved in the show: Roger ended up on Martha’s seat with her coat over his head whilst hiding from the Amazons; we helped in a fight with Captain Flint, were sprayed with water, retrieved a dropped prop and, at the end, assisted in sending a model of the Swallow out across the auditorium. The girls tumbled out of the theatre declaring it the best thing they had ever seen.

boo!

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When I was a child, nothing much happened on the 31st October, the big event was Bonfire night, a week later. But that was before ET. I remember watching the trick-or-treating scene with a mixture of awe and envy – it looked so exotic, scary and fun. The following Halloween my friends and I got dressed up and wandered the streets of Clapham wailing “trick or treat” at bewildered neighbours, who were not prepared, or interested. I think our first haul included an apple and some Rich Tea biscuits. That was until we reached the house of an American couple who welcomed us with delight, wondering what had taken us so long. It transpired they had waited patiently each year, a few sweets at the ready, but no one came.

These days, however, Halloween is quite a big event, particularly in our neighbourhood where it has become a mini-festival. The afternoon starts with face-painting and apple bobbing, costume making and music, all of which is free, and very much aimed at children, but people are encouraged to make small donations which go towards a local children’s hospice. At 6pm, once it’s dark, the Halloween trail opens and bolder trick-or-treaters can visit houses staging ‘happenings’.

This year’s highlights included a ghost leaping out of a dustbin, a ghoul hiding in a woodpile, a small child in a coffin who can only be brought back to life by the touch of another child and an Alan Sugar-style vampire who hired and fired his visitors before sending them off into the night with a handful of sweets.

And in typical Montpelier fashion, there was a little social comment thrown in for good measure.

happy easter

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Easter means lots of things to me. I am not religious, but it is a celebration I always enjoy. Easter and Spring are bound up with the sense of renewal, of making a fresh start and finally shaking off the gloom of winter. New Year, although technically the start of the year, always feels too bleak to me and comes as a false start rather than a joyous leap into action. This must in some part relate to the fact that the garden is dead in the winter. Every January I wonder whether I will actually bother with gardening again. But four months on and  new shoots and unfurling leaves remind me that I love being in the garden and that this garden (which is fairly new to me) will gradually blossom into something lovely – though there is a lot of hard work to be done before that can happen.

For the last three Easters our garden has always smelt, if not looked, wonderful in the spring – the scent of the Clematis Armandii wafting in through open windows and, on the little lilac, wonderful cones of tiny buds awaiting their turn in May. Not this year though. On the first day of the Easter holiday there was no sign of the Armandii, the branches of the little viburnum I planted last summer were bare and the lilac looked as though it might give this year a miss. Off to Wales in a rain shower for a week of chocolate and walking and, unexpectedly, glorious sunshine, and we returned to find that spring had sprung.

Other reasons I enjoy Easter: each year it involves one birthday party and a spring-related birthday cake (the bunny at the top of the post was for Pin the Tail); a simnel cake; chocolate nests – which are something of a family tradition (my mother would make them for us every year); Lindt gold bunnies and finally, a mad dash around whichever garden is available in a frenzied search for little chocolate eggs. This year there were Easter bonnets too and a delicious dark chocolate Easter tart made by my friend Rachael.